Malware Writers Exploiting Michael Jackson’s Death to Spread Trojans

Malware authors, who never miss exploiting breaking news in order to trick innocent people into clicking on malicious web-links and downloading Trojans, have already hit the Net with a flood of messages relating to commentary and grief associated with the sudden demise of 'King of Pop' Michael Jackson, as reported by internetnews on June 29, 2009.

It is also noted that malware purveyors and spammers have started exploiting the curiosity of the general public about the pop singer.

Mikko H. Hypponen, Chief Research Officer at F-Secure, wrote in a personal blog on June 29, 2009 that because of the eagerness in the public, the security vendor had already detected a number of trojans related to Michael Jackson.

F-Secure states that one Trojan sample discovered - Trojan.Win32.Buzuz.bjyo.

However, according to the company, these attacks bear no interesting technique, as they are the usual Trojan droppers.

One file that F-Secure mentions is Michael-www.google.com.exe, which has been spread via photos-google.com and probably via orkut-images.com, facebook-photo.net and photo-msn.org too.

Understandably, if computer users execute Micahel-www.google.com.exe, it installs windup.exe and reptile.exe that actually represent backdoor IRC bots. Furthermore, they show a false alert message which says that it isn't possible to display the picture.

This is not the only such Trojan attack, as many more will soon ensue.

An important issue here, says Hypponen, is that Internet surfers require to exercise caution against web-links as well as websites that manipulate the current and sensational news, particularly those displayed in search-engine results, as it is a common observation that cyber miscreants tamper with search engines to produce malevolent results.

Actually, security researchers indicate that it is the most recent instance of spammers exploiting victims' eagerness to get news about famous personalities like Jackson's demise along with related details. While Michael Jackson was placed at No.10 on the list of celebrities utilized as lures in spam even prior to the singer's demise, spam mailers have used the names of Kristen Dunst and Kate Hudson, the famous actresses, Guy Kawasaki, well-known Net guru and Hulk Hogan the wrestler as well.